A portrait of John Parkinson as included in Garden of Pleasant Flowers.

Parkinson and his garden

John Parkinson, the author of Garden of Pleasant Flowers, is considered to be the last great herbalist of England. John Parkinson compiled his life-long learnings from his studies in Garden of Pleasant Flowers. It was published in 1629 when Parkinson was age 62. He achieved great status in England for his work as an apothecary, working for King Charles I. His knowledge was compiled of both family traditions passed down to him, as well as findings in a garden laboratory [1].

Parkinson wanted to examine ideas held by his counterparts that had never been tested. Parkinson, within Garden of Pleasant Flowers, lists 125 tulips he developed over time. He did the same with daffodils, auricular, and anemones. He followed a scientific approach to find ways to make his plants more and more impressive. Despite his attempts to follow a scientific method, he does manage to perpetuate mythology in Garden of Pleasant Flowers. The instance of this most notable was the “Vegetable Lamb”, which was in theory, a half-plant, half-animal creature [2]. Parkinson had a lasting effect on England’s study of botany, making effective changes to the way people approached this science.

Mattioli's portrait in one of his many books on Dioscorides and botany, included in Herbarz (1562).

Mattioli and Dioscorides

Pietro Andrea Mattioli was an Italian botanist largely influenced by the learnings of his Greek predecessors. Mattioli was highly regarded, working as Protomedicus, or head doctor, of Glorizia and spent several years working for the Hapsburg court of Prague[3]. Many of his works were translated into vernacular languages across Europe.

Dioscorides was a 1st century CE Greek herbalist. He was popular for many centuries following and seemingly personal to Mattioli. Mattioli spent many years translating Dioscorides’s works into Italian and Latin, for the purpose of pharmaceutical and botanical knowledge across the European continent. Mattioli's style of writing became an example to his peers on how to write about their more knowledgeable predecessors. The Discorsi is yet another example of Mattioli’s many, many writings on Dioscorides. Mattioli revered Dioscorides to the point that his contemporaries accused him of not doing any field work of his own, of creating his books merely on Dioscorides’s descriptions[4]. Despite these criticisms, he wrote and expanded much more than Dioscorides had, and included Post-Columbian exchange materials. Due to this inclusion of these plants and materials in the Discorsi, it is clear that Mattioli was not wholly dependent on Dioscorides for his knowledge on plants.

Nevertheless, Mattioli was a prime example of Ad Fontes, or "back to the sources", due to his fascination with learning from Dioscorides, and ultimately helped to spread the medical and botanical knowledge to Europe.